Im brewing a belgian wit and have not seen any action after putting it in the secondary fermented in the airlock. The hydrometor showed after the first fermentation a 1.12. Should I leave it alone or take another reading?

3 Answers
3

I would leave it alone. It sounds like you may have reached final gravity for the style. I very rarely see activity on my secondary vessels, and it is a good idea to not rack to secondary until fermentation is complete. Secondary is not as important for fermentation, instead it is time for the beer to have more time to clear out and flavors to meld together into a delicious brew. I recommend letting it sit a week, and take gravity readings the last 2-3 days of that. If there is no change you are good to keg/bottle.

Good simple answer. I agree the beer was probably done after primary and you don't expect to see much activity in secondary. The idea of a secondary FERMENT, is a misleading misnomer for the novice brewer.
–
brewchezMar 3 '11 at 12:54

Secondary "fermentation" is a misnomer. It's more for clarifying and conditioning beer. AAMOF, most experts these days recommend skipping secondary altogether unless you have a specific reason for it...a high OG beer that needs conditioning, adding fruit or dry hops to a beer. In general you're better off just leaving the beer in primary for 3-4 weeks.